The Cooks Bible: The Best of
American Home Cooking by
Christopher Kimball
Rare Culinary Wisdom And Great Fun To Read. Not Gospel Thought
Whether youre a kitchen novice or a veteran home chef, Christopher
Kimball has written the one cookbook you absolutely must own - an
indispensable guide to the best in American home cooking. As the
founder, publisher, and editor of Cooks Illustrated magazine, Kimball has
perfected a new way of writing about food: take a classic dish,
meticulously test all possible variations, and then present the recipes
proven best. Now, with THE COOKS BIBLE, Kimball at last gives you a
cookbook based on the same rigorous methods. From the ideal way to
cook a turkey to perfect chocolate cake, you get foolproof master recipes
for hundreds of favorite dishes - and one of the best basic cookbooks
every published. THE COOKS BIBLE takes the mystery out of preparing
a great meal. Whats the ideal ratio of oil to vinegar in a vinaigrette?
Kimball gives you the answer: 4 1/2 to 1. Whats the secret to perfect roast

chicken? A 375 oven and a 170 internal temperature for the thigh. How
about the toughest kitchen challenge of all, piecrust? Kimball makes it
easy with the right ingredients (including Crisco and butter) and illustrated
step-by-step instructions. For these and the rest of Americas best-loved
dishes - vegetable soup, poached salmon, roast beef, grilled ribs,
homemade pizza, waffles, chocolate chip cookies, and many others -
Kimball has tested and retested to deliver the definitive recipes. In
addition to these master recipes, Kimball also serves up a generous
helping of appealing variations - nearly 450 recipes in all. You can start off
with his Cream of Roasted Tomato Soup or Winter Red Cabbage Salad
with Bacon and then follow with a main course of Beef Tenderloin with
Marsala and Balsamic Vinegar or Braised Tuna with Ginger and Soy.
Pastas, beans, and grains dishes - Squash and Sage Ravioli; Barley with
Spinach, Parsley, and Chives; and Marinated White Beans - provide
intriguing accents. And Sauted Green Beans with Lemon and Walnuts,
Baked Carrots with Maple Syrup and Nutmeg, and Rustic Country Bread
make perfect accompaniments. For deserts, you can indulge yourself with
The Best Angel Food Cake, Buttermilk Fruit Cobbler, or a simple dish of
poached Peaches with Ginger. Throughout, Kimball elucidates kitchen
procedures - butterflying a chicken, for instance, or dicing an onion - with
more than 200 beautifully rendered step-by-step illustrations. And he also
provides lucid guidance on what kitchen equipment you need and what
you can live without - a microwave oven is optional, but good knives are
essential - including brand names, model numbers, and prices. From
recipes to techniques to equipment, here is a one-volume master class in
American home cookery, a cooking school in print for beginners and
experienced cooks alike.
Personal Review: The Cooks Bible: The Best of American Home
Cooking by Christopher Kimball
`The Cook's Bible' by `Cook's Illustrated' founder and editor in chief,
Christopher Kimball is a terrific culinary read, based on the unusual
collection of subjects and opinions on a truly wide range of culinary topics.
In many ways, the book reads very much like any one of a dozen `Cooks
Illustrated' cookbooks, assembled from related articles from their
magazine. The main difference is that the focus here is much more on
equipment and techniques than on specific recipes.
One has to wonder what entitles the author to call this a `Bible'. What
comes to mind is that this is a complete source of informantion and it's
advice is simply beyond question. Unfortunately, the charm and interest
one has in this book has nothing to do with either completeness or
authoritativeness. While it is accurate on many, many things, it's word is
not `gospel'!
The interest in reading this book comes mostly from the charm, wit, and
good humor of the author's writing. I get the sense of reading a culinary
Garrison Keillor in very much the same way I get that sense when I read
James Peterson's books or even Julia Child's early books. You don't get

the same bald humor that you see in Alton Brown's books, but the details
of the culinary advice is as good or better than Alton Brown's recipes;
however, Kimball's advice on cooking equipment is not as good as in Alton
Brown's `Gear for Your Kitchen'. This is not because Brown's insights are
deeper, it's because he focuses on laying out what it is you should do to
evaluate what works best for you in the world of kitchen gear, and deals in
general principles rather than on a magazine staff's notions of whats good
and what's not. For example, while Kimball recommends Wustoff knives
over all other makes, a recent `Consumer's Report' article rates Henkels
knives above all others, including Wustoff. Now I am certain `Cook's
Illustrated' has a better handle on what makes a good chef's knive, but this
shows how different people see things differently. Another weakness of
Kimball's equipment evaluations is that there is always the risk that one or
more models on his evaluations will be discontinued.
One reason I enjoy reading Kimball so much, both in this book and in his
`Cooks Illustrated' editorial pages is that it is such great fun to disagree
with him on some points. For example, his very first sentence in the
introduction states that there is little in common between gourmet cooking
and home cooking (and Kimball's aim is to talk about home cooking). I
argue that there is less difference between my cooking and that of Tom
Colicchio and Alfred Portale than there is between the average weekend
golfer and Tiger Woods. I use the same techniques, the same equipment,
and very nearly the same quality of ingredients. Acting on Kimball's
premise can lead to major mistakes, such as what I saw in the new
Culinary Institute of America book on `Breakfasts and Brunches' where
scrambled eggs and omelets are pictured as being only small variations on
the same technique. Kimball, on the other hand, correctly treats omelets
and scrambled eggs as two different techniques, even thought they start
with virtually identical ingredients.
Like James Peterson, Kimball has a very commonsensical approach to
things, which means he is much more inclined to see things for what they
are. My favorite example is his take on the microwave. While it is certainly
fast for certain jobs, this speed is actually a liability when it comes to many
other jobs, as it means the margin between good results and a disaster is
that much smaller. And, it is a technique which is highly variable by the
amount of food put into the box. When one potato can take 8 minutes, two
potatoes can take 15. This would not be true in a conventional oven or in
boiling water. Another problem with the microwave is that checking on
things and adding ingredients is a real nuisance, especially when the
cooking vessel gets very hot. This down to earth approach will also reveal,
now and then, some very counterintuitive facts about cooking methods. I
know it is very hard to believe this, but Kimball explains, with practically no
Alton Brown style handwaving, how and why a braised piece of meat
(cooked for a long time half covered with liquid), will actually come out
dryer than with some other methods if the cooking is done at too high a
temperature.

Next to the extremely commonsensical approach to things, I really like
Kimball's diagrams on how to do certain tasks. They are a model of how to
effectively picture a procedure so the reader will understand what it is you
are telling them.
Looking at the Table of Contents for this book reveals a really unusual
collection of subjects. While there are recipes aplenty, the real focus is on
general techniques and how to put them to best use. Several chapters
really put a lie to the `home cooking' versus `gourmet cooking' difference, if
one equates `gourmet' cooking with the kind of cooking done at Café
Boulud Mario Batali's Babbo. These chapters show you how to improvise
things such as soups, salads, dried beans, boning and butchering, and
stuffing. My experience is that most home cooking is done with one eye on
the open book, magazine, newspaper, or internet download with the recipe
for your dish. Professional cooking, on the other hand, is often done by
what's available that day (See Tom Colicchio's `How to Think Like a Chef').
This book is a great read and a great culinary education, even if you never
make any recipes from it. Highly recommended.
For More 5 Star Customer Reviews and Lowest Price:
The Cooks Bible: The Best of American Home Cooking by Christopher Kimball 5 Star
Customer Reviews and Lowest Price!